Fear of public speaking is a problem that usually starts early and can haunt a person their entire life. After all, public speaking is not only an important element in school, but often at work as well. “The only way to address it is to practice as often as possible,” Wolf-Gero Lange explains. Lange is Assistant Professor in Clinical Psychology at the Radboud University Behavioural Science Institute and one of the researchers involved in creating SpeakAPP!-Kids. “But that is difficult in practice. You cannot put a child in front of a class every week, and practising at home with stuffed animals or family members is not quite the same. Besides, after five times, grandpa and grandma often also get a bit tired of the practising.”
Through SpeakAPP!-Kids, children can practise in front of a virtual class. This makes the audience less scary and helps the children to better master their narrative. Children open the app on their phone, place the phone in simple cardboard VR glasses and then see a 360° video of a classroom. Lange: “The VR technology makes it look like they are really in front of a class. They can also look around them. We have videos of different primary school classes, so children of any age can practice with the class that suits their age. Children from years 2 and 3 see a circle arrangement, children from the upper years see children sitting at tables. There is also a teacher present. For children who want to build it up more slowly, there are also videos of empty classrooms. The recordings were all made in a real primary school to make the practice situation as familiar as possible.”
